August 26, 2010 - Why Am I Playing?

A friend recently asked me why i haven't signed on to Xbox live in a while and I was a little stumped. I love my 360 and still have games to play (ME2, Crackdown 2, Borderlands DLC). Then i started to think about the last few times i was on. The last time I was on, I was playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and just had downloaded the new map pack a few weeks earlier.

I was still playing pretty well and keeping more kills then deaths in each round. I was in the middle of the round and thought,  " I am totally frustrated by how badly i end up doing if I don't play this game consistently." I also realized that I had never played the multiplayer without another xbox live friend playing along with me. I had bought 3 call of duty games in three years simply to play with friends.
Finally I asked myself, "Why am I still doing this?"

I believe just about every gamer comes across this questions here and there, but this one had a stuck with me. I am personally not a huge fan of competitive FPS experiences and never have been, but i have played them so that I can still have the social gaming experience with my friends. Since, I can't get myself to play COD anymore, and then i realized ........  that it's okay not to.
But here is my questions,

Isn't this why they sell so many different FPSs? You get sick of one, want a new feel, and try the next.
That's why World War FPSs are dead or dieing off; because they were overdone. The act of shooting the Nazis or Japs with era-correct weaponry is all too familiar. Why are people still playing COD: World at War then? Nazi Zombies, kill streak and killstreak rewards aren;t in your run of the mill World War game.

Now it's about modern shooters and soon that seems to be passing the buck to...

You get my point. I am not out to say that FPSs are bad, they are awesome for their audience and I want them to succeed as much as I do any other good game.

IGN Editor in Chief Hilary Goldstein talked about how the same thing happened to him with achievement points in a recent Podcast Beyond! episode (beyond!). It can strike anyone at anytime. This was my moment and my time. 

What was yours?

Because I just think that for some of the hardcore gamers, this "why am I..." moment is occurring; is surprising; and sometimes...

Is exactly what we need to move on.